


Late Revelation

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Reckoning [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8651422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Rex sees someone, but doesn't mention it until they're in hyperspace. Possibly fortunately for all involved.





	

It was just his luck, Rex thought as he kept the loop of conduit around his shoulder, that even with two of the best mechanics in the galaxy on this ship, they would get enough sand blown in to fry a system he wasn't letting either of those two shrug off until they could get back home. He wasn't much in comparison, but this he could fix. One of the Noghri, Riishan, had gone along with him, and he dipped his head to respond to their ongoing conversation as they approached the berth where they'd left the ship. 

The old hermit of the desert didn't get into any of the settlements very often, but his continuing awareness that something was amiss had pushed him in this time. Learning of the slave revolts, of Jabba's reported death and the slaughter of several of his hired goons had mostly quieted his nerves, other than being curious who had been that brazen and capable.

Now, on the way to acquiring his speeder bike, a battered and aged model (much like himself), he glanced around, eyes falling on a man over at a ship in the berth across the way, talking with a small being of a type Obi-Wan could not place. The old Jedi would not have thought twice about it, save the man lifted his arm in such a way that the concealing poncho fell open along the side, and white armor showed clearly.

It had been years since the man had faced down a panic attack, yet he found himself thrown right back to the day he'd lost everything with the blasters of men he'd trusted with his life echoing behind him.

Something on the street changed and Rex's head swung, looking for the source, not dropping his hand to the butt of either deece, not yet. This was the kind of town where that was read as a challenge by a half-dozen idiots that hadn't even been on your radar a heartbeat before, he knew, and he didn't need that nonsense. Riishan was more than enough help to deal with however many, but he didn't need to add blood to the sands -- they'd done enough of that already, just doing what needed to be done. 

People, other people, jawas, a Twi'lek trio, one of the big long-necked beasts, people -- old man, beard and... 

He knew that shade of brown like he knew the blue of Ahsoka's montrals, knew that cut of robe, and he froze in complete confusion at the old man he didn't recognize staring at him only half-seeing the world through blue eyes. The eyes were almost familiar, somehow, but the heavy age didn't match to any _jetii_ he could recall. He turned his gaze back away, not understanding in the slightest -- surely not even here would any _jetii_ that had somehow survived be idiot enough to wear that... 

Obi-Wan struggled to pull himself back to the present, away from that day, to get his attention back on survival, on getting back to his home with a stop to observe Luke, if only briefly. As he dragged his awareness to the moment, he realized the man was looking away, but he had the briefest impression of having been seen. 

It could be a bounty hunter, the Jedi reminded himself. Armor was armor, and phase one armor had been almost as good as true _beskar'gam_. He forced himself toward the speeder once more, pretending for all the world that he had not even paused.

The old man was moving on, seemingly forcing himself to do so, Rex saw from his peripheral vision... and as he moved, there was something so familiarly fluid about the steps that it almost drew his gaze fully. He had to be seeing things, imagining it... 

...he'd tell Ahsoka, when she came home to him, he decided, rather than chase.

Obi-Wan felt a chill down his spine; he could not get to the Lars homestead fast enough, he decided. Seeing the armor on top of all the unrest in the Force was too much for him; he needed to know the son of his brother was safe. 

Thanks to the dunes and the way sound carried on them, the speeder bike was avoided by a speeder carrying that very boy away, leading Obi-Wan to have yet another argument with a man who was tired of Jedi foolishness. When Obi-Wan stopped arguing, it was to hurry back to Anchorhead… and he saw the ship the man in armor had been at was gone. In his heart, he knew good and well Luke was on it, and the Force had failed him, again.

+++

Watching Luke's innocent, passionate fascination with the ship and all of its systems ached deep in Reckoning's chest -- it was too familiar -- and he had almost started to retreat from it when he realized that there was a tension in Rex that hadn't been there when they left for the deep desert. That did not suit him, and he moved from where he had been seated to Rex's side, asking a quiet, "What is it?" 

Rex shook his head, then sighed. "Think I saw a ghost back there, that's all," he said, biting off the 'sir' before it slipped out. Sometimes… it wasn't that easy to think of his general being truly gone, but that was how they had to treat Reckoning.

"It's been a day for those," Reckoning replied, low, and pleased that Rex hadn't attempted to keep it back from him for more than a moment. "And the sands breed them." 

"If I never see that much sand again, it will be too soon," Rex grumbled. "Caked up a secondary system, and that's why we'd even gone back out of the ship, to clear that. Some old man, an idiot wearing the traditional robe of a Jedi, was there. Couldn't place him, so maybe he wasn't even a Jedi but… for a moment, I thought he moved like one I'd known."

Reckoning rumbled, not liking the sound of that in the slightest, and his right hand settled firmly on Rex, feeling through its interfaces that Rex was right there and safe. Even on Tatooine, no one would truly be that stupid, would they? 

Surely not. 

"We're never going back there, right?" Rex asked. "So it doesn't matter if it was or wasn't." Only, if it had been, could he have gotten an answer about his beloved brother? He'd never come across Cody in all the years since the Order.

"Mm," Reckoning said after a long moment, "no, I suppose it does not matter at all." He studied Rex's face, able to see that now there was something else... but he chose to let it slide, leave it be unless Rex chose to speak of it. There was too much in this trip for him to deal with already, without... 

Rex drew in a long breath, pushing away the not-feeling. As long as he didn't know, he could believe his brother was still alive, maybe escaped somewhere, even. "The boy is going to be a handful. Seems to be about Ezra's age, and that boy certainly was a trial to keep up with. But nothing can be as bad as 'Soka was at first," Rex said, to fill the silence, and move away from the pain.

"...you have my complete agreement on that last," Reckoning replied, even as his hands flicked an amused gesture that gave a half-lie to the words. "...Ezra. The one at the Temple. Mmm. I hope that he is well, wherever he may be.

"Luke would certainly have the potential to be, yes." 

Rex nodded. "At least he's out of the biter phase?" He gave Reckoning a smile, then got a little serious. "The boy's going to question, eventually. When he does… do you want to handle it, or 'Soka?"

"She's already handled some of it," Reckoning replied, "in her own, inimitable, way. But there are some things he... probably should hear from me. I suspect it will vary. 

"It will be interesting, after he sleeps tonight. There was something she would not tell me, on the surface." 

Rex frowned at that. "I don't like when she plays her cards close to her chest like that. It usually winds up with yelling and blasters, sometimes running. And I'm getting too old for running."

Reckoning snorted, entertained at the grumbling complaint, though the truth of it, the truth of what had been done to every _vod_ , was enough to sink pain through him. "I can't say I'm fond of it, either. Not good on the stumps." 

"Well, we'll just have to keep her from leading us into trouble, won't we?"

"More likely to be the pair of you getting me in trouble," said person commented, entering their space quietly enough that Rex actually jumped a little.

"Kriff, 'Soka, I'm putting bells on you!"

"I'd hold them quiet with the Force, just to sneak up on you, _cyare_." Ahsoka smiled, then sat down. "The Noghri seem intent on learning the boy's habits and scent, so I left him under their eyes, down in the engine room. Boy is ship-mad."

"...is _anyone_ surprised at that?" Reckoning asked, laughing quietly at the interplay between them. "In either case?" 

Ahsoka gave him her real smile, for his words and the merriment. "Not really. I guess I'm going to have to hustle some poor gambler out of another ship for him to tear down and rebuild with you," she said, happy at the thought of doing so. "That might give me time to go chase down those rumors about Felucia, if I know you two are tied up with a project, with the Noghri to keep you both safe."

Rex cocked his head, not sure what rumors had caught her montrals this time, but she didn't volunteer. 

"I suppose you will," he agreed. 

After a few moments of silence in the hall, Reckoning spoke again, soft. "There was something you were going to tell me? There will likely not be a better time for some time, if he is distracted." 

Ahsoka sobered up immediately, closing her eyes. There was a spark of temper, then almost infinite sadness in her, for Reckoning's past. "I know how Luke got to Tatooine. What I don't know is how or why his mother died, if Kenobi was right there!" she said in a low, rough voice. "But then, I obviously didn't know him all that well, given what he did to my Master."

Rex had flinched violently at hearing the name. "So that was him?" he blurted out, before thinking to censor it.

Reckoning tensed all over, his jaw tightening, and gave serious thought to dropping the ship back out of hyperspace to return to Tatooine at that idea, at the thought that he had been on the same ground as Kenobi and not known it -- 

\-- Padmé had been alive, had given birth (or the child had been saved from her body, he had heard of that happening)... and still died? With Kenobi there, gone in her ship, she had still died? 

He would rip answers as to how out of Kenobi along with individual bones out of his feet.... 

"Reckoning." Ahsoka's voice was quiet but firm. "Luke needs you. Not our dead."

He growled, low in his throat, but she was steady, and, worst of all, correct. "...sometimes your tendency to be correct is _very vexing _, Ahoska."__

__"Try being me," Ahsoka said in a very dark, pained tone, and Rex reached out to rest a hand on her shoulder. Some of her directed missions had come with … advance warning, for lack of a better phrase, of the costs, for Ahsoka. Rex knew it, had held her in the aftermath of those, when she drank herself nearly blind to escape having sent people to their death or worse._ _

__Rex made up his mind that once they got the kid and Reckoning home, if 'Soka really was going to go off on some mission, he'd backtrack to Tatooine, see what he could learn. He didn't like knowing that neither of them held anything toward Kenobi but burning hate on one side, and severe distrust on the other._ _

__Reckoning moved a step toward her, his hand spreading over her other shoulder, a low, understanding noise deep in his throat. That Ahsoka was plagued with visions, that was something he regretted even though he had nothing to do with it._ _

__She took a deep breath, slow and careful, making herself let go of the bleakness, feeling both of them care for her in their own ways. It was a balm that made her reach out, touching both at once, touching them physically and with the Force._ _

__"I know you will do well by her son," she finally told Reckoning. "And Rex is getting to be an expert in how to keep a Force user from getting too cocky."_ _

__"Had to," said soldier said gruffly._ _

__Reckoning made a quietly amused noise, pleased to feel and hear her steadying back out from that moment of too many memories and too much blood, then looked at Rex._ _

__"You're going to need to be, with his son," he admitted._ _

__Rex nodded, then smirked. "Stars, but his reckless and her sass? We're all doomed," he said with humorous melodrama, making his wife giggle at him._ _

__"Oh Rexter, you are a mess!" she told him._ _

__"I thought we knew that already," Reckoning said, but the playful commentary did have him relaxing some more._ _

__"Oh we did. But every _aliit_ needs at least one." Ahsoka smiled and kissed Rex's cheek, before leaning over against Reckoning. "And now we have a child to finish raising. Which makes our clan even more complete."_ _

__Rex gave a soft smile, watching as she, again, reinforced that Reckoning was theirs, that he was tied by kinship, not duty or responsibility, to them. He had been so skeptical at the beginning, but … Ahsoka had been right. This man was rising above the flaws of both roles he had already played._ _

__Reckoning slid his arm down from her shoulder around her back, careful of her lekku, to hold her in against his chest for a moment. "So we do."_ _


End file.
